Saturday, June 18, 2011

LENNY & WIENER

My old friend "Alameda Tom" had a post on his blog in response to the whole Wiener saga with a link to a Lenny Bruce riff I may have first listened to with Tom back in '64. I don't remember anymore if I heard it somewhere else first, but I certainly enjoyed it the most sharing the experience with Tom.

Lenny's riff may now seem sexist in some ways, but back then it was not just revelatory, hearing it was like an epiphany, as hearing many of Bruce's riffs were. It was like realities you'd been aware of, consciously or unconsciously, all your life were being spoken of for the first time.

There's no denying the power of Bruce's honesty about subject matter no one hardly even wrote about back in the 1950s, let alone spoke out loud about them, especially in front of an audience. At any rate, check it out, at least you might get a chuckle if not an epiphany out of it.

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